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Maybe a little bit of confirmation bias but I'd tried to be as honest as could and HE WAS HORRIBLE. After viewing the all-22, I disagree with all we need is 5 new linemen or and they win type thinking. No way, no how. Add Whit and Z to the line and they lose. Again, I have no idea what I'm talking about and have spent 0 minutes of my life coaching football at any level.

Here we go:

1st goof award goes to Marvin Lewis - Punting down 20 with 9:54 left. Idiot. Please quit, now. It was the Buffalo game last year I mentioned this in a similar circumstance. You have to convert right there or the game is over. So they removed the drama and punted. Great.

2nd goof award goes to Zampese/Marvn/Dalton - Not sure who the culprit is. Going into the game the Ravens had Offensive Line questions. Our DEs actually performed well against their tackles in the First drive. First drive Danny Woodhead converts 3 first downs from the Backfield or Slot by simply being an outlet finding room underneath in coverage. Effectively rendering our rush futile.

Is it game plan? Is play/scheme selection? Is it not seeing the field? Not sure. All these clowns get it, IMO.

3rd goof award - Paul Alexander. Nice job at Left tackle there buddy. Great job at RT. Awesome job at C. By my count I put the sacks 2 on Ced, 1 on Fisher. Bodine in all his gracefulness only looked stupid half the time and gave up multi pressures. Hopkins probably lucky he got hurt and gets sympathy got trounced early and even Boling shoved in the backfield on a Gio 2 yard run. Fisher 2 bad holding calls (although maybe that's on the ref.) Stellar job.

* 4th sack I put on Eifert as he ran into a WR and I'm guessing was supposed cut it shorter, forces Dalton to tuck and get sacked. 5th sack leads us into the Grandaddy of all Goof Award Winners this week ANDY "Red Rifle" DALTON!!!!

Now this isn't to say he was the only problem and everyone else is PRO BOWL material from Sunday. However, he had many many plays that could have changed the course of the game. That's the importance of the position. So here we go:

1 - Int Number 1 - Right Decision. Probably late or a little low with the throw but IF it's made AJ maybe a TD, but certainly within the 10 yard line. Possible to mark this up as a great Raven play too.

2 - Nice Completion to AJ Green. What? Goof? Had LaFell with a bigger window and considerably more room to run. He just wasn't seeing the field today.

3 - Int Number 2 - Inexcusable. He isn't reading Defenses this early in the game. He predetermined that Green and Eifert would draw coverage instead he stared down LaFell and drew over the LB, meanwhile the Bengals had AJ/Eifert opposite side working against 3 defenders and with 2 beat. The 3rd would have had to choose who to cover. It's either a throw to AJ to score or a throw to Eifert for a 1st and a chance for YAC to score. Assuming the ball is thrown well and caught. Bad, bad, bad.

5 - Inexcusable. Predetermined to go to Eifert. Gets 4 yards Misses Mixon out of the backfield with miles of room to work. See criticism above about Woodhead.

6 - Inexcusable. Cody Core wide open misses him. To make things worse he passed on AJ wide open for a first down on a shallow dig route. You have to make those plays.

7 - Play before sack/fumble - He doesn't deliver the ball to LaFell that was at the 2 in between defenders. Enough of a window to make the play. Then he's late getting to AJ on a shallow dig with a blocker. Instead he scrambles eventually gets to AJ who's at the sideline and he makes the YAC

8 Sack/Fumble - Inexcusable, again. Pre determined to go to Eifert. Gets scared a last second and doesn't give Eifert the chance to beat the coverage. Pumps and scrambles and fumbles. Ced was bad on this play too, he needs to hold the block. HOWEVER, La Fell picks #57 assigned to Gio. You have to know instantly that's zone and Gio is man. It's an easy read and score for Gio.

9 Inexcusable again! Check down to Mixon. Eifert open down the hash. No confidence in his arm to make that throw at that point.

10 Inexcusable again! 3rd and 9 before Marvin's weak ass punt. Critical as critical gets IF you want to have some chance at a comeback this point. He goes to Boyd and throws it bad. OK, he also missed Mixon releasing through the middle of the line and the LB trips in coverage HE's wide OPEN with miles of room to run! Ugh.

The 10 plays mentioned above would/could have changed the game and all were on the shoulders of Andy except maybe the sack/fumble because Ced had to hold that block for a least a second longer.

Kinda harsh on Andy and I know Andy is always a HOT topic in Bengals land. Some clarifications. The second long ball to Cody Core. Great decision and throw by Andy, Core had to make the play, IMO. That's a critical play. I thinks there is a couple instances of wrong routes. An example would be on the fist sack that I credit to Ced. Ravens are rushing 6, Bengals have 7 in. The 3 routes are at the sticks (9 yards) or further. Not going to happen. Someone missed a hot route or didn't release.

So that kinda of stuff along with the line and certainly make Andy skittish.

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The trouble with complaint that Andy Dalton "pre-determines" where he's going with the ball and misses player x open elsewhere is that this is a feature, not a bug, of the offensive system he is running. It's all built around making a pre-snap read about what the D will do, then quickly looking post-snap to determine if that read was correct and delivering the ball in 2 or 2 and a half seconds. For the system to work, that pre-snap read has to be correct. If it's not, you've got a busted play.

Now, if you want Dalton to sit in the pocket and go through a progression tree and find the open man, fine. But then we need a new offensive system. Oh, and a line that can give him 5-6 seconds to do this, set and throw. Back when Palmer was here, this is what we had under Brat, and I can remember screaming at Carson to throw the damn ball. Usually just before he got sacked.

Again, Dalton played poorly and admitted as much after the game. But in this particular case I think you're looking for him to do something that this offense isn't designed to do.

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A couple examples to consider to dispute blaming the "system" instead of the QB.

#1: In the sack/fumble. The pre snap read should lead you to believe a high degree of confidence that Gio will get man coverage or sagging LB Zone. The only scenario pre snap that would foil this would be the DE #99 dropping into the flat. I have the advantage of Hindsight being 20/20 but he knows Eifert from the slot is going to run to the middle to the back endzone and LaFell is going to run a hard slant towards the man covering LB. It's my guess, Gio could have been the intended #1 option. He lacked confidence in his decision to make Eifert #1 choice because he would have had to throw the ball over the head of the LB and in front of Eifert from the secondary defender. A throw he and I Eifert had connected on many of times.

#2: In the 4th Quarter he actually goes to his 3rd read in Mixon for 4 yards. The Ravens show a safety close LOS shaded AJ Green's side (Right) The Bengals put a 3 Target stack on the left headed by Eifert. Ravens counter by putting 3 defenders over there. Pre Snap would be Man Coverage, I guess. Dalton looks he reads Zone (correctly) the Safety over the stack back peddles deep. As does the Safety shaded to Green's side. The LB drop deep. Eifert runs his pattern behind the Backers in front of the safeties. This is a play Andy did not have confidence in making. He then goes to his 2nd read AJ Green that runs a shallow dig across and Dalton Passes and goes to the 3rd read Mixon.

5 Anthony Munoz's aren't fixing it IF that's the system. A QB has to stick it in there when he's got the opportunity and Andy (IMO) didn't have the gusto to do it on Sunday like he has shown in 2015 and 2016.

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I remember back in '15, PFF rated the league's QBs performances when pressured. Dalton came in 31st.

He simply must have a clean pocket. His lack of pocket awareness, and his strange inability to find some clean air in there, renders him an almost complete zero when pressured. Also, we need not just good, but great, receivers. They have to get separation very quickly for our quick strike offense to work!

All Dalton needs to succeed are all-pro level receivers, and all-pro level linemen.

The D was also at greater fault, not able to stop the run when they knew they were getting a forced diet of nothing but run

Again - Andy was a problem, no doubt about it, but he wasn't the worst problem, not even close, in a game where there was a vast wealth of blame to share

I did not spend a whole lot of time on the run game until now. I think that use of that stat is wrong or misleading.

The Bengals had first half runs of:

12 by Hill, 8 by Mixon, 23 by Gio which is over 14 yards per carry and 56% of the team's rushing total. I've looked at these plays and the ball carriers aren't touched until they meet the eventual tackler.

They had another 8 yard carry removed from a holding call on the second level block by Fisher. Assuming he doesn't hold it probably a 4- 6 yard gain if Mosley makes the tackle.

1st Drive - That drive had 12 yard carry by Hill. The drive ending is entirely the fault of the O-line. Back to back pressures on 2nd and 3rd down forced a punt.

2nd Drive - Features 8 yard carry by Hill. But the drive ends off a Dalton Int.

3rd Drive - Features a 23 yard carry by Gio. But the drive ends off a Dalton Int.

4th Drive - Features an 8 yard carry by Hill Fisher hold call on the second level. Drive stalls because Andy overlooks Mixon and settles for 4 yards to Eifert (goof award winner). Then Dalton overlooks AJ with for a first down and overthrows wide open Cody Core (goof award winner)

5th drive - Features 4 yard carry by Gio. Then Dalton deflection and INT. (note I did not award a goof to Dalton) that's a good play by Suggs and Dalton was going to the right spot.

6th drive - Feature 5 yard carry by Gio (not touched until he meets tackler) Drive ends because you have Eifert running into a WR, forcing Dalton to tuck and get sacked (goof award winner)

Halftime. There's isn't a negative carry and several carries in which the Raven D was gashed. Why wasn't there more running? O-line I can put 1 drive on them. The others I'm not sure who else you can blame other than Dalton for not taking a very effective run game and not getting points.

7th drive - Features 3 carries for 3 yards as they work on a short field. Drive ends in Sack/Fumble (goof award winner)

10th drive 0 runs. Ends on Dalton throwing it away on 4th down. I didn't award a goof because in my mind game is over and when your coach punts and quits then you can't blame bonehead mistakes on players.

11th drive - 1 minute. 2 Mixon carries -9 yards.

I can't see how the run game and o-line are faulted for this game over Andy Dalton. It's all there in film and drive charts. Unless scrolled over and missed stuff.

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I think the drive charts show they put the ball in Dalton's hands and unfortunately we got a bunch of QB driven mistakes mixed with great Raven defensive plays. That's not to say the O-line/RBs would have saved the day, IF they would have avoided the QB mistakes. They simply didn't get much of an opportunity to say one way or the other in that regard.

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And we'll get to watch another one, Thursday night, if we have the stomach for it. I'm going to watch, and I expect significant improvement from the line. That's all Dalton needs is a bunch of time. Would love to see him pick J Joe apart. Nothing personal, that trunk full of Gatorade comment still stings a little.

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We can watch the game and the tape but never be able to see inside daltons head. But if we could we'd see his absolute complete knowledge that his LT and C will give up 10 clear hard shots on him a game

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Oh don't speak so soon Army, the Texans may have the only o-line worse than the Bengals. Could be an all-time NFL total sacks record set for a single game. Or we could see every active QB knocked out of the game for both teams and have WRs or RBs finishing the game up ala wingback /wishbone / option 1920s pro football.

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Tonight's game will defy everyone's expectations in that it will be a high-scoring shootout. The Bengals offense will do its usual bounce back thing after a horrible performance and put up points in bunches. Meanwhile, the defense will its usual job of making a rookie quarterback look like the second coming of Montana/Unitas/insert HoF QB here.

And yes, the Bengals will lose when Bullock misses.

Anyhow, that's my prediction and I'm sticking to it until it's wrong then I never said it, this is fake news and you are all liars.